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Disclaimer: The author has been accused of being overweening to the point of arrogance. The author has also been accused of arrogance. Lastly, the author has been accused of projecting, or, in a case of misunderstanding terminology, trying to influence others by using mere words and logic, thus forming a consensus opinion that reflects their own. All and some of this may be true.

There are four people I trust in Pservers who act as front of office facemen.

First is Darkrasp. Now he and I may not get along much these days. Things have been done and things have been said. There was never a strong relationship to begin with nor a chance for it to develop but, inherently I trust him and his work ethic. He's the backbone of Crestfall and has shown all the loyalty, integrity and honesty you need as a front line manager.

Next is Elicas. Again, I don't have much of a relationship with Elicas other than multiple Discord chats and some venting conversations. He's also a bit salty sometimes. But, again I totally trust him to do a professional job and not betray the project or the people he is associated with. Stop laughing at the back there. I know exactly what you're thinking and you're exactly wrong as recent events have shown. Plus, he's the hardest working tester in the multiiverse.

Next is Wyke. I do not know Wyke at all. But we have a recorded history of everything he has done and everything he has associated with. I'm sure he's not perfect, but in Pserver terms he is Sir Galahad. Yes, Lancelot gets all the cookies but his fingers were in the pie, so to speak.

Last is me. Stands to reason. If you can't ttrust yourself then everything in the world around you is built on quicksand.

There's quite a few other people I would trust, but I won't name them. Partly because some won't appreciate it, mostly because they can't, won't or are unsuited to be front of office. You know who you are, so you know I'm not slighting you. If you disagree with my front office analogy about you, then just raise your hand below. It might prove highly amusing.

So that's the first challenge of Crestfall. The people who front this from now on have to be trustworthy. I include the four people above because in my opinion, any or all four of us can face up this project and talk to the community, knowing that the people who we count on can trust us. If CF is going to survive in any context, then from my entirely subjective persepctive, it's got to be us or no-one. This is the easy part.

________________________________________

Now we get to the hard part, funding.

Hobby bullshit project is bullshit. CF can only survive if it receives a wealthy backer or donations from the community. This should not and cannot come from the developers and staff, although they should feel free to contribute if they want. So what the project needs to do is to establish a slush fund to pay for the hardware/software required, plus the ancillary services of a website, this forum and so forth. We need to set a monthly budget required and ensure we are always 3 months ahead of demand.

I do not believe the costs for this are prohibitive. I do not think you would need too many contributions. As a suggestion, I would say a €4.99 monthy subscription and get about 250 people to subscribe, giving us ~€1250 per month. This is enough to pay for contingencies and initial set-up costs, but not enough to make anyone feel greedy. Naturally, transparency is the key. We don't want to name subsribers, but we do want to present a monthly budget to them by email so they can see where the costs are going. This ties in with the trust part above.

Now everytime I raised funding up on this forum I was derided and abused, because people don't think they should pay to play on a Pserver. To these people I have only one word to say to you: Elysium. Now, you can change the funding option you like to novelty pets or special mounts, you can pay to retain a name, or change faction or all other cosmetic stuff, but for me this cheapens the game and the reputation of the server. Ultimately with me it's down to having the courage of your convictions. If we believe we are creating a far superior core than anyone else, if we believe that the user experience will be as realistic as possible, if we believe that the server will be run in a professional and impartial way, and if we believe that only CF can provide a PTE experience, why the hell wouldn't people pay for a €5 subscription knowing they can cancel it at any time if we fail to deliver?

For this to work, you need to set realistic, achievable goals. By that I mean ''Beta Testing ends xx/xx/xxxx'' ''PTR opens xx/xx/xxxx'' ''Server opens xx/xx/xxxx'' so people can bail out if targets are missed. This brings us back to one of my favourite subjects, project management. Structure. Organisation. Planning. Management. Task Completion. All things you don't hear about in Pserver world. If CF is a better product then it needs to be managed better too.

One option on the subscribers is as follows. If for legal, financial, or quality of life reasons it was decided not to go for a free-for-all server available to all, there is always the possibility of engineering a smaller project that is genuinely private, with a target audience of ~2500 people. You can drop the rate down to €1 per month if you like, and invitation would be word of mouth with security clearance as an addition.

_____________________________________

Now we get to the hardest part. The back end office.

So any of the front office are just contributors to the project. We don't run the project per se, we just do what we're told. We may have integrity and honesty, so if we smell a rat we're first to voice our opinions. But our good friends can't go after us because our association with the project is no different than the secretary or public relations spokesperson in Goldman Sachs. What we need is an owner who is geographically impossible to send a legal writ against. Essentially, the opposite of Gummy/Felmyst. I think this may be the trickiest part but I have a pretty good idea how it can be done.

_____________________________________

That's it. Nothing massively complicated. But that's my overweening, projective, arrogant, subjective opinion. It's only part of what we are as a community. So those of you still out there, and those of you lurking in the long grass, feel free to add your own noble, wothwhile, objective and honest rebuttals below.

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Mostly i agree with ur point.Tho, i dont see the point of this text.If u ask why(pls dont ask), read elysium - cf merge announcement and all other threads. "we" couldnt do shit bout it, so stop dreaming about some "our community means something".This is not Blizz project.(not anymore:)

And yeah, u are arrogant;)

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I wouldn't mind having a subscription personally. Honestly, I would pay for an official blizzard legacy realm if it were an option. But crestfall has often missed deadlines, has many times mentioned it considers itself as a hobby project, and it would be quite a leap of faith to assume that once live, issues would be addressed in a timely manner. But sure, I would throw in a few bucks a month without question if it was shown that the server was being managed properly.

Between now and a server launch though, it looks like all sorts of logistical hurdles have to be handled. People will be skittish, and rightfully so, about paying for a projects costs without having security that what they are paying for will be around long enough for it to be worthwhile. I love the idea of what crestfalll will someday be, but an honest assessment of the projects ability to meet deadlines/promises consistently shows that the dedication needed to manage this project reliably after launch is something to question. Not in a bad way, but just an honest way. When launched, I'll definitely play but when a project is approached as a hobby, Darkrasp himself has said, it is very difficult to force deadlines on people. It requires a committed group for both long and short-term needs.

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The only reason you can point to Elysium for an example of financial woes is because they abused their player-base arrogantly and consistently over a time period of years.

That said, there's absolutely nothing wrong with a slush fund. Paying for the server is the easy part. Paying for people is where we've all seen things get sticky.

The issue of compensating the people responsible for developing and maintaining this kind of project is only sticky legally, and not morally: I'd go so far as to say that a literal tip jar for the personal financial support of teams spending who work so hard to make these servers is a morally and practically reasonable idea as long as it is out front, on the counter, and completely distinct from the server donation box.

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Why do you continually insist on treating Crestfall as a professional project ran by a business rather than what the developers have always intended it to be? (A hobby)

I'm not speaking for them, but I think it's fair to assume that since Asura and Darkrasp both have jobs, the last thing they want is someone giving them deadlines and nagging on them to see if they've completed the work they were asked to do.

I also fail to see the why having you and the 3 other mentioned individuals are necessaryfor Crestfall's survival? It seems like a false dichotomy to me that it's either all 4 of you or else the project is doomed to fail. (I understand this is your opinion but at least provide some rationale as to why such is the case).

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I know an other server that has been running for a lot of years now without any drama. they offer a "premium" package for 5€ per month. this premium offers you: you gain 2x skills on professions, you can level 2x (this could be disabled in the first month's as an option, or even totally disabled), and most important to lvl 60s: INSTANT flying. means no fly times, you instantly get to the other flightmaster. So no gamebreaking deals but MUCH convenience for players.

my 2 cents

(btw i am not a fan of this premium thing but I wanted to throw it out here)

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I can easily afford to donate $2000 bi-weekly. i could care less if im the only 1 donating... i want to see this project fly .. and punt a few gnomes for god sake.. or milk a taruen... yummy.... seriously tho.. would that would for u guys

'

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assuming there are still 5k+ waiting to join the adventure here.. you only need a hundred or 2 donating 5-10$ monthly.. it is a game after all.. it shouldnt be free to begin with... if u like sumthin u support it regardless.. if u dont.. ur a cheap fraud and maybe u cheap skates burn in val-u village hell.. sry rly durnk

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€5 for quality PTE server with no bots/goldsellers/p2w of any kind is actually a nobrainer for any player who is looking for a server to stay for a while. But in case of CF we can't even say when (if) there will be open beta. The developement lasts for some while now. Still there are no videos of demostration of mechanics, no release or at least ptr announcement. I and I believe many other players would subscribe for €5 a month but there should be something to expect in return. Otherwise it sounds really wierd: subscribe for monthly fee! Ok, so when can we play? Oh well, someday.

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Think you idea of a sub is great. I don't se the problem a server can't be run by will it need donations.

As i have stated before i have 0 problem with staff making money of a project. What i have a problem is that the means witch many project funds there servers are by means witch affect the gaming experience.

ex:

Making gold to sell to players: that inflates the market. Destroys AH and cost for the rest etc. Just because blizzard does it now on retail don't make it ok. And cant compare them with goldsellers who farm and farm to get gold.

Selling caracters that you have created. Like Crogge did with r14 geard are totaly destroying the game. It's pretty hard work to get there with a caracter. You should not give that away to support the server that destroys the experience. Even less geard caracters are wron. ffs lvl like the rest of us. Some say then "but selling caracters are allready done by sites". So? first of that is lvld caracters made by players and the effort behind is countless hours. Not same ting even if its wrong.

Things that could generate money:

1. When serverer are released se to it players could pay to have like 1-2 names taken by them for caracters.

2. Get a premium membership to skip que. Could be lifetime or for let say 6 month/a year.

3. Vanity items like "pets".

4. Maybe to creat an account in first place to play you need to donate a sertain sum 1 per account.

There are 4 options imo that could bring in some money.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Sherekhan

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And you again overreact and leap over the sensible solution - its not business, its hobby project, so no deadlines will make it work. The key is - staff(as in more people). They need more developers, more database people, more scripters, more system administrators and so on, clearly now they have enough only testers. But with the prospect of working on the probably best emulator in the business - there is the issue with trust and loyalty. If I had more knowledge of wow(details) and was good with c++(never wrote a line for years) I would gladly volunteer, but nobody would accept me, coz they don't welcome devs that are a security risk.

On the financial point I did a comment on another topic and will copy it:

Quote

People believing that someone will waste hours(spanning to years) of their lives just so some stupid schmuck will someday say "thanks brutha" is really stupid. And I would gladly donate so those people that waste that time and provide great service(I wanna emphasize that I don't mean elyshit in any way - just hypothetical super quality server - probably CF) for me to play and hopefully relive some of my memories when playing on retail vanilla-wotlk. And I don't mean only for expenses of the server. If for example server requires 500 eur monthly and they are getting 5000k monthly donations - instead of booking years and years of rent servers take the extra for yourselves. Buy some legal advice for example, make a team buildings or just order pizza, or pay someone health bill or help him with the rent when changing jobs, etc. Stop trying to be some saints or martyrs. Take something extra besides the thanks of the players - their donations is monetary form of their gratitude and its rightfully yours. This will make the more weak of the staff to not go the dark route and provide more incentive to work for our pleasure. Just make it smart, so "B" has no extra excuse for a shutdown.

But not make it subscription, it makes it like it ties you down, like its obligatory - its a recipe for disaster and also limit the income by alot. This is why the new payment model is with micropayments - some people are willing to give big amounts, but you limit them to (i.e. 5 euro) and some have no spare money for this kind of shit(some will never pay for private server) and this limiting is QUITE LIMITING SHIT!?!

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I always operated under the assumption that having a subscription model of any kind for your private server was a sure-fire way to get shut down by Blue. Dunno if there actually is more risk involved compared to a donation-based model, but requiring folks to pay for an essentially pirated service might be more open to attack from a legal perspective than offering that service for free while not being opposed to the occasional monetary gift. Just speculating here.

20 hours ago, Sque said:

The original idea for cosmetic shop, paid race and name change is still the best. This is as blizzlike as it could get.

This plus being open to donations would be best, imho.

As for the idea of turning CF into a managed project: I'm sure the thought must have occurred to Asura, Darkrasp and the others involved. Introducing deadlines, milestones, a Gantt chart and whatnot will probably make the project feel more under control. It'll also turn into work what is now still a hobby (which these folks already dedicate a lot of their free time to, I'm sure). Being held accountable for missing a deadline or not meeting some requirement might be more detrimental to someone's motivation and willingness to expend time and energy on such a project than letting them set their own pace. And why not, since none of the dev team are under any obligation to deliver this project on some deadline (or at all, for that matter).

I'm very much in favour of throwing some more warm bodies at this thing, though. Surely there must be a few applications to that extent ... just take the time to interview folks and let them work their way onto the team.

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@Outstanding While I give credence to your words and believe that you know a thing-or-two about company management, I disagree with you on several points.
I will only write down a single one, however, as this one trumps every other issue and it is a serious one at that.

If you make a company to run a server or website for your own creation or property is fine but..World of Warcraft is a ... TRADEMARK AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF BLIZZARD!!!!

The moment you start asking for a subscription fee is when they will come to get you. And this time it will not be only a cease and desist order. They will sue and this will turn into a court affair.
It is their property and their legal right to do so. And if anyone thinks that hosting Crestfall from a backwater country of the Eastern Block or anywhere else will prevent this, well they are simply daft.

There is no such thing as "geographically impossible" when it comes to legal rights. The Piratebay moved to Sweden at some point because it was not illegal there and they thought they were safe. After a year or two, Sweden was pressured enough by corporations and the DMCA that the police came and ended the operation there. So don't be naive, when money, corporations and legal rights are involved, if you ruffle the feathers enough they will come and then it's over for good.

I urge everyone to consider what I have said, for the good of the server.

Donations and the vanity shop are all around on private servers and they are overlooked, so the original idea is the best idea I think.

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Did you not step down from the project @Outstanding? Where is the 'we' coming from in your post?

The royal we of course, alternatively you could be kind and consider 'we' to be the community

12 hours ago, d3joos said:

Why do you continually insist on treating Crestfall as a professional project ran by a business rather than what the developers have always intended it to be? (A hobby)

I'm not speaking for them, but I think it's fair to assume that since Asura and Darkrasp both have jobs, the last thing they want is someone giving them deadlines and nagging on them to see if they've completed the work they were asked to do.

I also fail to see the why having you and the 3 other mentioned individuals are necessaryfor Crestfall's survival? It seems like a false dichotomy to me that it's either all 4 of you or else the project is doomed to fail. (I understand this is your opinion but at least provide some rationale as to why such is the case).

So first up, maybe I was unclear. Any one of the four people mentioned can be front of office. Personally I'd prefer Darkrasp but I don't think he's cool with all the PR and community minding part. Ideally you want a team of differing talents. In relation to professionalism, professionalism does not mean going to a Harvard business class and using the dubious lessons learned to run a project like this. For example, we're about to move into a house, I'll be doing the painting. The wife will choose the colours, I will organise my weekends and spare time, and I'll get it completed before the carpets and floors go in. I will do a professional job, I won't be as quick as a hired painter but you couldn't tell the difference. I take pride in my work thank you.

Same goes for Pservers but the threshold is much higher, because the work you do means thousands of people are depending on the skillsets of your team. This is not the case in MANGoS servers, but it is definitely the case with this one, the first truly standalone core in what, 10 years? Just remember, the owners of Crestfall were the ones that hyped everything up. Numerous promises were made on how good the core would be, plus the DB, the scripts and all other ancillaries compared to MaNGOS. Personally, I don't doubt it is and it might/will be. So if you're going to bring in a better product then for the love of God bring it in with some form of competency = professionalism.

5 hours ago, Joyman said:

And you again overreact and leap over the sensible solution - its not business, its hobby project, so no deadlines will make it work. The key is - staff(as in more people). They need more developers, more database people, more scripters, more system administrators and so on, clearly now they have enough only testers. But with the prospect of working on the probably best emulator in the business - there is the issue with trust and loyalty. If I had more knowledge of wow(details) and was good with c++(never wrote a line for years) I would gladly volunteer, but nobody would accept me, coz they don't welcome devs that are a security risk.

On the financial point I did a comment on another topic and will copy it:

But not make it subscription, it makes it like it ties you down, like its obligatory - its a recipe for disaster and also limit the income by alot. This is why the new payment model is with micropayments - some people are willing to give big amounts, but you limit them to (i.e. 5 euro) and some have no spare money for this kind of shit(some will never pay for private server) and this limiting is QUITE LIMITING SHIT!?!

There has always been plenty of people around in CF to get things done. I think the biggest issue before I left was getting a bunch of SQL programmers. The issue with the project was the bottleneck at lead-developer/project manager = Asura, and the fact that at least 50% of the testers were lazily bollixes who spend most of their time in Elysium doing raids or going AFK. Nothing wrong with the numbers, everything wrong with the dilligence and focus.

1 hour ago, Xantros said:

@Outstanding While I give credence to your words and believe that you know a thing-or-two about company management, I disagree with you on several points.
I will only write down a single one, however, as this one trumps every other issue and it is a serious one at that.

If you make a company to run a server or website for your own creation or property is fine but..World of Warcraft is a ... TRADEMARK AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OF BLIZZARD!!!!

The moment you start asking for a subscription fee is when they will come to get you. And this time it will not be only a cease and desist order. They will sue and this will turn into a court affair.
It is their property and their legal right to do so. And if anyone thinks that hosting Crestfall from a backwater country of the Eastern Block or anywhere else will prevent this, well they are simply daft.

There is no such thing as "geographically impossible" when it comes to legal rights. The Piratebay moved to Sweden at some point because it was not illegal there and they thought they were safe. After a year or two, Sweden was pressured enough by corporations and the DMCA that the police came and ended the operation there. So don't be naive, when money, corporations and legal rights are involved, if you ruffle the feathers enough they will come and then it's over for good.

I urge everyone to consider what I have said, for the good of the server.

Donations and the vanity shop are all around on private servers and they are overlooked, so the original idea is the best idea I think.

Regardless of what you do Pserver-wise you will be targeted by Blizzard. Blizzard tried to shut down Kronos without success. They have (allegedly) tried to shut down Elysium without success unless WK is one of their agents. They might try to shut down Let's Hope, I don't know. They did shut down Nostalrius, except they didn't in the end. They did shut down Gummy but that was hardly a reach now, was it? Having subs, a vanity shop, a Paypal scam is all the same thing to Blizz. If you have the numbers and are succesful they want a piece of you.

One final point on subs. I don't think the penny has clicked with people that Crogge was the main financial backer of the project. So this forum could disappear tonight should he wish to do so. Regardless of the matter, if the CF team decide to continue on with the show, they are going to need hard cash to host servers, run this forum, get a website up and running etc. No shop is going to pay for this, it wil ahve to be done on trust. Hence subs.

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I and I believe many other players would subscribe for €5 a month but there should be something to expect in return. Otherwise it sounds really wierd: subscribe for monthly fee! Ok, so when can we play? Oh well, someday.

Are you seriously alluding to subscriptions before the server even releases?

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Are you seriously alluding to subscriptions before the server even releases?

Subs/Donations call it what you like, I consider it to be a commitment from the community. To turn the question around, seeing as you've been here for quite some time, are you prepared to contribute to the project? If so, how much? Then you can call it a sub or call it a subscription. As I mentioned above, you could have 6-12 months before launch all of which has to be paid for. Where is the money coming from? The staff pay in time, the community pays in cash.

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Well I stumbled apon a mention of my name, I dont often drop by here these days and what with all the drama its surprising I even noticed it.

I thank the OP for the kind words, and can assure you are correct in thinking I very very few loyalties and even fewer friends. While I take an interest in the crestfall project I dont think I am the person to offer any long term commitment, and with a project like this still in beta you are signing up to a LOT of years ahead if things go well. I want this project to succeed but I am under no illusion that its going to be the next big thing or even in beta in 3 months. Should crestfall find an alternative solution to remaining under the elysium infrastructure I may reconsider my situation.

I have wondered if it would be possible to set up the realm as some form of charitable enterprise, ie no owner. All costs covered by staff and players and any excess goes to charity, think that may dissuade blizz from hounding the staff. The negative PR of taking down a charity raising realm would be a disaster, and the players know that there is some stability AND good work being done. During this research into charities I stumbled across an amusing thing, autistic people (normally the go to insult these days) get great benefit from playing on computers and can find communicating online more beneficial than in person.

At the end of the day I am no lawyer, but ANY form of subscription or lifetime membership scheme is a real legal issue in many places, and why realms rely on donations or sold services. I am far from an expert on the legal issues and it does vary a great deal.

Anyway, in terms of the original post, I would be happy to support crestfall again in the future if there was some form of independence and transparency

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Subs/Donations call it what you like, I consider it to be a commitment from the community. To turn the question around, seeing as you've been here for quite some time, are you prepared to contribute to the project? If so, how much? Then you can call it a sub or call it a subscription. As I mentioned above, you could have 6-12 months before launch all of which has to be paid for. Where is the money coming from? The staff pay in time, the community pays in cash.

I think you overestimate pre-launch (or pre-open beta, if you will) costs by a decent amount. Costs being yuan and not time, of course.

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@Outstanding Exactly how much does it cost to run these forums? I mean, anyone who works full time could probably have a forum I guess.
Not that I ever looked into it but I doubt it would require a fortune - I assume it should be fairly simple to keep up by Asura or someone.

So I see no reason why we could not have the forum running, unless if Discord is cheaper. Regardless, sharing info is vital for Crestfall at this stage I believe.

I feel that a lot of generalization is being thrown around about the expenses so it would be nice to have a rough breakdown of, just how much would this project cost.

Additional questions would be:
1. Where is the computer for the beta server located and who owns it?
2. Who owns the forum website?
3. Who would own the Paypal account and who would have access to it?

I for one, will not pay a single coin for anything, until I see some tangible results. I came to Crestfall after seeing some promising videos a year ago and ever since then, there were only empty promises, lots of drama that could have been avoided and sloppy PR. Only in the last month, did I see any videos from Darkrasp and I can tell that a lot of work is being done, however, I won't pay anyone anything until I can see for myself what Crestfall can offer - which has to be proven to me in Open Beta.

And I sure as hell want to know who accesses that donations account - we don't want another Shenna-only access now do we?